Posted
by
timothy
on Sunday February 09, 2014 @09:50PM
from the remember-me-from-the-slaughterhouse-internship? dept.

angry tapir writes "LinkedIn is shutting down Intro, its recently launched mobile service for connecting people over email, that raised security concerns. Intro was launched last October and described at the time as a 'dream come true for hackers' The service was made for the iPhone, and was designed to grab LinkedIn profile information and insert it into emails received on phones. The service displayed that information to the recipient from the email's sender if the sender was also on LinkedIn."

It's actually quite apropos, since Dice was useful once upon a time. I've had plenty of interviews through Dice, and I believe, though I cannot confirm, my current employers contacted me after seeing my resume on Dice.

Dice's hardheadedness with the/. beta resembles in no small way LinkedIn's blunderings for maximum profit, and not at all for the mission of serving those for whom each service was originally set up.

How about because corporate recruiters and headhunters use it (and seem to like it)?

I'd delete my linked in profile in a second if not for the fact that a) I'm unemployed and hoping it'll help me get a job and b) my last job came via LinkedIn so I view it as a necessary evil and c) quite a few job postings require LinkedIn as the only method of application.

Recruiter are paper pushers Had this one tell me I did not have enough security experience, based on my resume. Told him I could send him an updated resume if he sent me his public key... I never heard back from the moron. Wonder if he has recommendations for security in his profile

I've never worked for a single company that gave a rats backside about linked-in (or facebook) profiles. Sure , on occasion when I've interviewed I've done a google on the candidate but thats about it. We always went by the CV. End.

"quite a few job postings require LinkedIn as the only method of application"

I would suggest you avoid those sort of idiotic companies then. Though I'm not convinced they actually exist outside of your mind.

...and also removing any/. RSS feeds on my Web portals, with a message explaining the reason for the change to users. http://soylentnews.org/ [soylentnews.org] is the beginning of the new/. alternative

Nice UID! I got mine while trying to get the fabled UID=1,000,000. Not sure who ended up getting that prize.

Just a reminder, comp.misc on Usenet is being used as a temporary discussion forum. Usenet access is available through eternal-sepetember.org

Let's hope Dice reverse their decision and cancel plans for Beta. If they don't, though, this is as good a time as any for people to break away from slashdot as a group. Good luck to everyone in the slashcott.

I registered there yesterday. I do hope that Soylent [soylent.me] doesn't sue. I realize they're both named after the movie, but it will likely lead to confusion when people google the words soylent and news.

We are contributors of stories and comments and "News for Nerds, stuff that matters".

Without us Slashdot is just another lame webscraper.

If the people of Dice want "Slashdot" to become a dead name like "AOL", well go ahead; you're doing a fine job. Just don't act surprised in a few years when you're sitting on a worthless name wondering what the he'll happened. It's not like you weren't warned.

We are contributors of stories and comments and "News for Nerds, stuff that matters".

Without us Slashdot is just another lame webscraper.

The kind of strident and petulant arrogance reflected in this and other similar comment makes me look forward to the slashcott, when all the morons like you just stay away. If you take a story this one, and substract the ant-beta vandalism from the comments, you end up with a very high level discussion forum.

A boycott of slashdot (a 'slashcott') will begin at midnight tonight, and last until midnight on February 17th.

Plans to replace Slashdot's user interface were first announced in October, 2013. The initial announcement garnered extensive comment, almost exclusively negative. Concerns were raised about the style and the substance of the 'Beta' design. In style, use of images and whitespace meant lower data density and difficult reading. In substance, it became difficult to read the context of comments, or to simply read through a story with more than a dozen comments. User comments are central to what Slashdot is, and many users thought that the Beta design would seriously impede the flow of conversations.

And so, when it was announced on February 5th that the move over to the Beta design was beginning, users protested the change. For a day, story comment sections were almost completely filled with comments about the plans for Beta.

Then, on February 6th, Slashdot responded and made concessions. They acknowledged some problems with Beta, and pledged to slow down the switchover.

The reason given for the switchover to Beta is to have a site that is "more accessible and shareable by a wider audience". For many users, those ill-defined reasons to not justify discarding a discussion system that has evolved over more than fifteen years.

Users who still demand that plans for Beta be cancelled will be taking part in a Slaschott between February 10th and 17th, and will not be commenting on or visting Slashdot.

In the meantime, alternatives to Slashdot are being established.

Many are going to comp.misc on Usenet. For free access to NNTP, see eternal-september.org, which will give you access to comp.misc, as well as other treasures like comp.lang.c

Others are setting up a a web based alternative to Slashdot, and they could use help. See soylentnews.org for more details.

This site used to be great. Even in it's latter days, it's been good. That is poised to change. Before long, it will be mediocre, and ordinary.

I didn't see a problem when Dice Holdings initially bought Slashdot. I figured there would be efforts to drive nerd traffic towards their job listings and such. That was fine. We all need jobs.

Things have changed now. Beyond the shifts in story choices, the slashvertisements, and so on, something fundamental has changed: Slashdot's owners do not appreciate it.

Their recent financials show that they have written its value as an asset down to zero. They have legally claimed it to be worthless. That is at the root of what is happening now. They want to fundamentally change the nature of this site in order to remake it into something with big growth potential.

Beta is just the latest symptom of this disease. It will not be the last. In striving to make it into s site that will bring them a growing user base and growing revenue per user, they have shown a willingness to dumb down the interface in the name of making it more accessible to newcomers, to cast aside essential elements of decade-spanning community culture, and to plow ahead with changes in the face of overwhelmingly negative user feedback.

This is not going to change. This will not go away. I will not support it. I will be gone for this entire week, in protest. While away, I will work to create a new community where things can be run with quality user discussions as the paramount objective.